1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and article for use in protecting doors within buildings during painting, construction or decorating.
2. Description of the Prior Art
During painting or redecorating of rooms within buildings the walls and ceilings within the vicinity of interior doors are frequently painted, although the doors themselves are often not painted at all or are not painted with the same paint. Nevertheless, as paint is brushed, rolled or sprayed onto the adjacent wall and ceiling surfaces, the doors are subject to being stained with unwanted droplets or drips of paint.
According to present techniques of painting and redecorating, doors are covered with drop cloths in order to protect them from inadvertent paint droplets and splatters. However, the use of conventional drop cloths is unsatisfactory in the protection of doors during painting and redecorating for several reasons.
Conventional drop cloths are large, expansive sections of thin plastic or canvas. When conventional drop cloths are draped over doors to protect the door surfaces from paint and other construction or decorating materials, they are deployed in a tent-like configuration draped over the top edge of the door. The door is therefore essentially immobilized on its hinges, and cannot be easily opened or closed further from the position it is in when the drop cloths are draped on it without significantly disrupting the drop cloth protection.
Furthermore, conventional drop cloths are of a size and configuration far too large and loose for satisfactory use in covering doors. A drop cloth draped over a door will typically hang with edges trailing on the floor on both sides of the door. The drop cloth hangs with drape-like folds at the edge of the door. Painters and other workmen moving in the area are very likely to step upon the trailing edges of conventional drop cloths and thereby pull the drop cloths totally or partially off of the doors they are intended to cover. This problem is aggravated by the bulkiness of the trailing material of conventional drop cloths. This trailing material represents an obstacle to ease of passage by painters and workmen through doorways. The loose and rumpled portions of drop cloths lying on the floor in a doorway make passage through the doorway by painters and workmen more difficult. This bulk of excess drop cloth material on the floor contributes to the likelihood that a drop cloth will be pulled out of position in which it is draped on a door during an attempted passage through a doorway.
A further difficulty with the use of conventional drop cloths to protect doors within a building is that passage by the building occupants through a doorway is further obstructed by the bulky, draping folds that typically hang from the edge of the door opposite the hinged door edge from which the door is mounted to the door frame. The use of conventional drop cloths for covering doors within buildings during painting and decorating thereby presents an impediment to movement through the building and increases the time required to complete the painting or redecorating tasks to be performed. Furthermore, when a drop cloth is inadvertently pulled off of a door by trodding on the loose material near the bottom of the door, the falling drop cloth can brush against freshly painted surfaces, thereby disturbing the appearance of fresh paint on those surfaces.